Many of us here, have come from forums, and we may have some ideas for improving the 'usability' of this site.

Before 'Cracker' was destroyed by it's new style makeover, it used to have the front page with a style where the threads were listed in order of the most recent response.

I liked that feature because it enabled a more 'conversation' like flow.

I thought we could enable a similiar style here, by having the "Most Recent Reply" list, expanded, to show the last ten responses in order, this would help to show who is posting at the time, and could promote more 'chat' between members while simultaneously online, rather than just leave a reply, and checkk back later to see if anyone has responded.

What do you guys think?

Is it worth giving a try?

If anyone has got any other ideas to promote a better forum experience, then put them here and we can see if FD thinks they are worth trialling.

Cheers Bigears :)

I agree moz, that was crackers best feature, this forum is a bit harder to follow because of its format, your suggestion is a good one.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?action=recent;display=20

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?action=recentlist

The second one works for me, but I think you need to see all the posts made since your last visit not just the top ten.

wrote on Dec 10^th, 2008 at 12:11pm:

The second one works for me, but I think you need to see all the posts made since your last visit not just the top ten.

I've noticed if a thread has new posts in it, it has an icon near it announcing so, and you can check your last visit time and match it up with the time stamp on the posts in the thread so you know where to start reading from.

I use the same technique as easel. I jsut open up those boards and threads that have the icon showing recent activity.

Skippy, does the first one not work for you?

freediver wrote on Dec 10^th, 2008 at 12:59pm:

I use the same technique as easel. I jsut open up those boards and threads that have the icon showing recent activity. Skippy, does the first one not work for you?

I like the second better, the first one looks too messy.

I'm trying to get one that is in the same format as a board, including the new post indicator, but don't hold your breath.

I like the second one.
It's already available, but if it were more prominant and with larger text, it would help to promote input to topical subjects which may otherwise be missed.

Me too Ammad, I like the second one best.

It is definitely more fun for me when I can take an adversarial role with someone ready to reply.

To some extent, you're limited by the format of the software (YaBB).

It's usually possible, but to change things too much often makes it difficult when upgrading to a new version. Yabb actually has quite a lot of modifications available, and the Modification engine is quite easy to use, but you don't always get exactly what you want.